


Love Song

by orphan_account



Series: Tidbits [16]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Attempts at humour, Banter, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Crack, Duckboi, Gen, Idiots, Plane Accident, Prank Wars, Refusal to use a name, accidental skydiving, but not out of malice, in case that triggers someone, no editing we die like robins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22868470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “You cannot be serious.” Protests Damian.It had been Tim’s initial reaction to his counterpart’s declaration, too. Even after seeing the lie, realizing the deception, he’d wondered why. Why go with Drake. Why something so obvious.Then he’d seen the genius behind the plan.or, Tim , Damian, and nicknames
Relationships: Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: Tidbits [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541653
Comments: 32
Kudos: 485





	Love Song

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to officially, formally thank an awesome person for helping me with this fic :  
> (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemini_Baby/pseuds/Gemini_Baby)  
> Pls go check her fics, she is a seriously awesome writer and awesome person. She (and ilast) helped me come up with a lot of the nicknames in this fic.
> 
> Also, yes, I am once again bringing you senseless crack.
> 
> Those are my thoughts on tim's "new hero" name being officially 'Drake' in some comics.

The first few rays of the winter sun are peeking through the kitchen’s curtains, giving the room a cheerful pale yellow glow, as Tim takes slow, enjoyable, sips of glorious coffee from his mug.

This coffee does not _just_ taste like coffee. It tastes like victory. It’s victory coffee. His very own victory coffee after years of hardships.

Casually seated next to Bruce at the small kitchen table, Tim stops himself from showing any emotion. His face is blank. He’s not even raising a challenging eyebrow at Damian.

Really, he’s not.

No matter how much he may want to. No matter how easy Damian’s frustrated face would make it.

Tim takes another sip of victory coffee. Tim does not smile. Tim is the perfect picture of innocent composure.

Damian’s turning a shade of puce no healthy skin should be able to produce.

Over the years, Dick’s gone from ‘ _Grayson_ ’, to ‘ _Richard_ ’, to “ _Bhai Jaan_ ”. Jason’s gone from ‘ _punched-into-the-ground-Robin_ ’, to a grudgingly respectful ‘ _Todd_ ’. Or even _‘Bhai’_ on special occasions.

Tim has stayed firmly ‘ _Drake_ ’ throughout all of it.

But no longer.

Black coffee has never tasted sweeter.

“You cannot be serious.” Protests Damian.

It had been Tim’s initial reaction to his counterpart’s declaration, too. Even after seeing the lie, realizing the deception, he’d wondered why.

Then he’d seen the genius behind the plan.

“I am.” Tim replies.

“It’s a security risk.” Damian grasps at straws.

“It’s not.” Tim argues. It really is. Everyone here knows that, including Bruce who’s only staying silent in an attempt to be supportive right now. Tim’s pleasantly surprised. “It’s too obvious. No one would believe I went with that.”

“I certainly cannot.” Damian mutters.

“Nevertheless.” Bruce interjects. “You know the rule, Damian. I expect you to respect it.”

“Father.” Damian acknowledges with a nod. “Drak-”

He stops.

The thing is. The thing is that Alfred and Bruce both enforce one rule, one that’s crucial to their survival: No hero names in the Manor. Or every time they’re out of costume, really.

A last sip of victory coffee hides Tim’s smile beautifully.

The knowing, fond, and exasperated, look Bruce sends him can’t even dampen his mood.

\----------

For a few days, it’s glorious.

Tim’s planned this well enough that he won’t have to use the name on patrol, that their secret identities are safe. For a few days, it all goes according to plan. He gets to bask in the wonderful feeling of victory. The feeling of one-upping the gremlin.

Tim’s jotting some notes down, working a case of his, when someone enters the office. Judging by the lightness of the stride, it can only be-

“Drak-” Damian calls, stopping himself at the last second. “Timothy.” He chokes out.

“Yes, Damian?” Tim asks pleasantly. The gremlin sounds like Tim’s strangling him with his bare hands, not asking him to use his first name. “Can I help you?”

Damian wordlessly turns on his heels.

Petty?

Absolutely.

Satisfying?

Hell yes.

But then Damian gets the idea to retaliate.

\-----------

The gremlin chooses his moment carefully, of course. For all that he can be ruthless, he’s also just as cold and calculating as Tim is. And Tim should have expected this, really, he should have, but he’d been distracted, trying to solve one of Gordon’s oldest cold cases - some of them were _fascinating_ \- and maybe a little sleep deprived to boot.

He’s in the Cave - has been in the Cave for a while, though how long he’s not exactly sure - hunched over the Batcomputer’s keyboard when it happens.

A sandwich is shoved in his mouth. .

That’s not Damian’s grand revenge, just Jason’s idea of self-care. It says a lot about Tim’s day that that’s not even the most alarming part of it.

He glares mulishly at Jason, trying to convey in a single facial expression his brand new, though intense, need to hurt the man. Said man waves a lidded coffee cup enticingly around Tim’s head the same way adults sometimes try to divert a baby’s attention using a rattle.

“Fug hoo.” Tim carefully tries to pronounce around the mouthful of bread. He starts chewing even as he steals the cup from Jason. Then swallows. “Can you stop being obnoxious for a second?”

“I don’t know, Tim, can I?” Jason mocks.

“Apparently not.”

The more annoying older brother he has tries to swap the sandwich for a bottle of water. Tim clutches his food in his hands tightly, baring his teeth sligtly. Even if he knows Jason’s only doing it to annoy him, is trying to use reverse-psychology on him to force him to finish the damn food, it works. The sandwich is _his,_ now, damnit.

Jason smirks, apparently satisfied.

“What are you working on?”

Tim crosses his legs, setting his food aside, the perfect picture of the tiny aristocrat/business mogul he was supposed to be.

“World domination. My mother always did insist on having a suitably ambitious five years plan.”

Jason barks out a laugh, surprised. Momentarily distracted from Tim’s eating habits.

“See, what’s more surprising is that you haven’t managed that, already.”

“You two would have gotten along wonderfully.”

The wince he tries to suppress is almost painful to witness.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.” Tim nods, unperturbed. “I’m just waiting on some deaths to happen naturally before putting my plan in motion. It makes it look overall less suspicious that way.”

 ** _That’s_** when Damian chooses to act, the little shit.

“Is speaking so casually of your plan really the wisest course of action, then, _Detective?_ ” Come the low, rich tones of Ra’s voice. Tim jumps, almost kneeing Jason in the balls in the process, hands scrambling for a weapon. How, _how,_ has Ra’s entered the Cave without them noticing anything, how has he come so clos-

He only finds Damian, standing behind them, visibly doing all he can to stop himself from smirking. He’s hiding his smile behind a cup of hot cocoa, even, the terrifying little _bastard_.

“Holy shit.” Jason wheezes, letting his hands fall, putting a knife back in its holster. “Holy shit, Babybat, that was-”

The most accurate imitation of the immortal Tim’s ever heard.

“The name I’ll use from now on.” Damian hums, pleased with their reactions. Tim is going to ruin his digital life. Tim’s going to take great pleasure in making sure none of the gremlin’s drawing tablets work for the next two days. No. The next week. “Seeing as ‘Drake’ is now such a safety concern.”

This time, when he leaves the Cave, it’s smugly.

Jason starts laughing at him, and even seething as he is, Tim can’t bring himself to regret the days he was an only child.

————————

Damian starts dropping behind him, sneaking up on Tim and using Ra’s voice whenever he can.

It gives Tim a heart attack, every damn time.

So, he steals and hacks into Damian’s electronics.

Except, while doing that, he finds picture of all of them on the devices, pictures Damian’s obviously spent hours drawing, and- Tim’s. Tim’s there, too. And not even a deformed, mocked version of him. No, it’s him, in his Red Robin uniform, facing a warlord, about to beat him into the ground.

He looks…

Like how Tim’s pictures of Batman and Robin used to look.

He leaves _one_ (1) tablet accessible. One for the brat to use.

The one that’s the most well hidden, though, so that the little gremlin thinks it’s accidental.

——————

Tim doesn’t wait long to corner him.

“You can’t call me that.” He says, calm, logical. All things he’s trying very hard to feel. To be. “It’s just as much of a security risk as my hero name.”

“Thank you, _Detective_.” Tim cringes. Damian’s smirking. “I’m well aware that I can’t use that moniker in front of civilians.”

“You have a plan.” He states.

Going by the look on his face, he does. He really, really does.

It only gets worse from there.

Damian unleashes his pets in Tim’s room. Tim ducktapes Damian’s door and drawers closed. Damian moves every object, every piece of furniture slightly to the left, so that Tim bumps into everything when he wakes up. Tim sends an embarrassing video of him to Dick, and puts his baby pictures as the Batcomputer’s screensaver. Damian dyes his new costume green - only females ducks of that species are entirely brown, Drake- and Tim makes sure the only Robin costumes he can find to patrol that night are Dick’s old version of the thing.

It’s not conventional sibling bonding, nothing like what he has with Dick, that’s for sure, but it’s ten times better than the murder attempts they’d started with.

The “Detective” thing stops with Bruce.

“Damian, son. Enough.” He says, a little pale, one night, after Damian’s given them all heart attacks again with the nickname. “Please.”

“Fine.” Damian huffs. “I’ll find another.”

“Bruce.” Tim says fervently, as soon as they’re alone. “Bruce, Dad, I love you. Thank you.”

—————

“And, of course, you’ve heard of my adopted brother, Drakeothy Mallard.” Damian says, as he fake-introduces him to Jon Kent at a Wayne Enterprises Gala.

They’re supposed to keep up appearances, pretend they don’t know each other, but if this isn’t the pettiest thing Damian’s done, Tim doesn’t know what is.

Dick has to go off comms, he’s laughing so hard.

—————-

He’s subjected to an ever growing collection of awful nicknames, after that.

Jason is entirely too happy to help. Every single one of his brothers are entirely too happy to help with this.

“Timarius.” He suggests. “Oh, no. Wait. Drakastic. Dim Trake.”

Damian hums, kicking his legs idly as he draws a nose on his tablet. Tim regrets giving the little gremlin access to his drawing supplies back.

“Timilius. Tiny. Timberly. Tum Tum.” Dick starts spewing nicknames left and right.

And it just never stops.

—————

During training.

“We’ll work in pairs.”

“Timkachu! I choose you.”

“Dick Grayson. I swear to Kon.” Tim announces. “And you know he can hear us, right now. So, I swear to Kon. If I go back to the lockers room to change. And find my new costume bright yellow. Blood will be spilled.”

—————

At home.

“Careful with the stairs, Tin-Tan. You’ve still got that twisted ankle.”

—————

Until, eventually, Tim’s betrayed.

“I don’t wanna hear it” He says, not looking up from his laptop when Bruce announces his presence by letting his foot scuff against the floor of Tim’s room.

“Sweetheart.” Bruce tries to argue. But Tim won’t let him. Not now.

“No. I am not hearing this. I am not listening to this. I am this,” He still doesn’t look up, but does the appropriate gesture with his hand. “-close to winning. This close, Bruce. Damian’s is going to mess up soon, I can feel it. Let me have this.”

“Timstar.” Is said, almost helplessly. “You don’t need to do this.”

At that, Tim does raise his head.

“You.” He spits. ‘Sweetheart’ is something Bruce’s used before. ~~Tim likes i-~~ It can be forgiven. But this new nickname is betrayal of the highest order. “ _Traitor_. As if your girlfriend calling me Kittim _on patrol_ wasn’t enough-”

He rants. So maybe’s this is running his patience thin. But he isn’t wrong. Tim is this close to winning. Damian is going to mess up soon, he’d bet another spleen on it.

—————

And mess up, Damian does.

It just takes them almost dying in a plane crash for him to do so.

It’s stupid because they almost die, but not on a mission. Not to save the world. No, they almost die in their civilian persona's. The flight wasn’t even supposed to be dangerous, it was just supposed to be a small panoramic flight. A way for Tim to get the best aerial pictures of the island they’re staying at. A way for Damian to get better at drawing landscapes. A way for them to relax, for once.

Ha. What a joke.

The thing is, the company is cheap. Their plane is a little old thing, way past its skydiving glory days, and it can’t handle the height they’re flying at anymore. They only understand that when they’re flung half out of their seats as one of the motors blow.

Tim opens his eyes not ten second later, groaning and pushing himself away from Jason, from where is older brother is curled protectively around him. He can feel his lip bleeding. He can see the back of Jason’s head bleeding too.

“You okay?” He asks.

“I took one for the Tim” Jason rasps.

Tim briefly considers hitting him. He doesn’t. Instead, he hands him the first chute he finds and lets him go check on the pilot, while he himself check out the rest of the supplies they have.

Not enough, as it turns out.

Damn cheap-stakes tour companies. This is the last time Tim flies commercial.

And damn, isn’t he glad their oldest brother isn’t there with them at the moment.

“Take it, Bhaiya.” His little brother says stubbornly. It doesn’t hit him just then, what Damian just said, busy as he is with trying to keep him still and get him to safety. “I have no need for a parachute.”

Of all the vast array of possible traits to pick up from Dick, why on Earth did the gremlin have to choose that one?

He wrestles the kid into the harness, not bothering to answer, methodically checking then adjusting every single part of it until it fits the too small frame correctly. His mind is whirring away, busy preparing for the verbal and intellectual match making Jason keep the last functional parachute would be.

“You misunderstand.” Damian says, stiffly, as he tries to stop Tim from tightening the harness’ straps further. “I have brought suitable backup.”

“Backup.” Tim repeats blandly, fingers stilling on the waist buckle. “What backup.” They’re definitely screwed, if they need even just one more parachute.

A small head of black hair peeks from behind a seat. Sky blue eyes framed with clear glasses look nervously up at him from a few meters away. Jonathan Kent rubs a hand sheepishly behind his neck just as Jason re-enters the cabin. He shakes his head at Tim’s questioning look. Pilot’s dead, plane’s un-flyable. Alright.

And, of course. That’s what, that’s _who,_ had Damian silent and occupied, who kept him from bothering Tim for the last hour.

“Hello, Mr Wayne.” The kid greets nervously. They’re yelling, at this point, the wind that’s whipping through the door Jason’s opened loud enough to drown almost everything.

“Finally, someone with a little respect.” Tim says, then pushes Damian out of the plane. “You’re next.” He informs Jason. “Kid, do you think you can fly the both of us down?”

That’s when Jason notices Tim still doesn’t have a chute on. He glances around the cabin.

“Like hell I am.” Jason snarls.

He’s free-falling out of the plane door not five seconds later.

—————

The kid can, as it turns out.

Tim’s forced to admit that Kryptonian airlines are much more reliable than commercial ones. He’s definitely filing a complaint. As soon as they get home.

Hell, if he doesn’t, Bruce sure as heck will.

They meet up on a beach, below, and with Jon’s help, determine that they’re at about a three hours walk away from their hotel. Damian looks so relieved- Well. Not displeased, at least, to see him alive that Tim realizes that he is clearly The Adult (TM) in this situation, and that as such, it falls onto him to be responsible.

It’s a terrifying thought.

“Hi, miss Lane?” He greets as soon as she answers the phone. “Tim speaking. I’m just calling to say that Jon’s with us, unharmed.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Hums Lois. She doesn’t seem anymore surprised than Tim had been to learn of her son sneaking out. “Though I can’t help but notice your use of ‘unharmed’. What happened?”

“There was a small plane accident.”

“What?!” Exclaims the reporter. “Just how high was he flying?”

Behind him, fumbling with the ice pack he’s trying to apply to Damian’s bleeding brow against the teen’s feeble attempts at resistance, Jon makes a small sound of outrage.

“I would be able to see a whole, entire, plane coming in time to dodge, Mom.” He says loud enough for the phone to pick up.

“Sorry, Jon. I know that. Do you need any help Tim-” Lois starts to asks, but Tim doesn’t know how to answer, because he’s suddenly distracted by the realization that yes. Yes, he did it.

“So.” Jason teases, ruffling Damian’s hair roughly. And that’s when it hits Tim, full force, what Damian called him. “Bhaiya, huh?”

There’s color rising on Damian’s cheeks. He tries to flatten his hair back down.

“You misheard, _Todd_.”

“Sure I did, Chhutko. Sure I did.”

“Do I want to know?” Sighs Lois.

“Do you?” Asks Tim, amused. Insanely pleased, really.

“Of course I do. I’m the best reporter the Planet’s got.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!! <3 <3
> 
> Bhai Jaan: a really, really, affectionate thing to call your older brother  
> bhai: Brother  
> Bhaiya: a cute / affectionate thing to call your older brother  
> chhutko: nickname for a younger brother/younger kid. Basically means small or tiny


End file.
